


my heart is too heavy for one

by Nyxierose



Series: (would you want me) standing in the same light [6]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: "She's wounded and complicated and prone to impulsive decisions he doesn't always understand or like, but hell, wasn't he one of them?!"Missing scene between 2x04 and 2x05.





	my heart is too heavy for one

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Pieces of Sky" by Beth Orton.

It's not right. None of this is right.

Flynn has spent the last two hours as curled-up in this chair as his body will allow, keeping watch over Lucy. Or at least what's currently left of her. She'll _live_ , or at least she probably will, but it'll be a few days before her body fights off the 17th-century germs and rust that are currently working through her bloodstream.

Because of course, the first time he was actually _supposed_ to protect her, she got stabbed. Figures.

He's surprised the others even let him take an observation shift, after everything. Hell, he's surprised he's even still _alive_. But then again, he hasn't been subtle lately. Lucy is, for intents and purposes, the one person alive who he actually likes. And she has been that since the moment he first met this version of her, and he supposes everyone else knows that by now. It makes sense, in that context, that he be allowed to spend time watching her.

She's safer with him then anywhere else in the world, hundred-and-four-degree fever be damned. From now on, he'll make sure of it.

He did save her life, he knows that much. He made sure she got out of the melee intact, back on the Lifeboat, back home (he hates applying that word to this underground concrete prison but it's the first space he's had in three years that even close to fits), and almost down the hallway to her room before she collapsed against the wall. If given a little more time, he would've dealt with the wound himself - he has decent enough field-medic skills, learned the hard way but still good enough - but instead he ended up carrying her and lying her down in the position she's now occupied for twelve hours.

Right now, she's asleep, or at least he hopes she is. She's alternated in and out of consciousness, apparently - at least that was what he managed to piece together from Jiya's better-you-than-me status update - but she's been out since before he took his watch. Hopefully she'll stay in that condition while she heals. This here isn't anything interesting to watch, but it's certainly better than screaming and writhing in pain. _That_ , he never wants to deal with.

He'll keep her safe. He'll spend the rest of their mutual lives doing that, and it'll be as good an atonement as he'll get.

Like, he _knows_ the journal isn't infallible anymore, but there were parts he memorized in order to keep himself sane and all of them involved this woman here in front of him. The day they win the war, the day they wed, the birth of their son. How easily he'd believed those parts in particular, even as he struggled to accept being handed a to-do list by a woman who explained herself as his wife from a decade in his future. He'd needed something to stay alive for, and he found it in the knowledge that things would turn out okay.

He idealized her, but that pedestal daydream is nothing compared to the reality, the beautiful and passionate flesh-and-blood woman he is finally starting to get to know on a real level. She's wounded and complicated and prone to impulsive decisions he doesn't always understand or like, but hell, wasn't he one of them?! Their current entanglement defies words, but he knows he wouldn't have crossed that line. She did. She is, has always been and will always be, braver than him. She is-

Lucy's eyes shock open, and he's at her side in an instant.

"Shhh. You're safe."

"What are you doing here?" she mutters.

"Jiya needed to rest." Let's just go with that explanation, he decides, way easier than pointing out that he volunteered.

"So do you."

Oh, he loves how she thinks so much about other people, but now is not the damn time. (Gods help him if she ever gets sick with something that doesn't blow over in two days.)

"I'm fine. Hard to sleep here anyways. Tried, but… too much background noise."

"Okay." Yeah, she's clearly out of it. The normal version of her would _not_ be this calm.

"I don't know if I'll be here when you wake up next, but someone will be. You're safe, Lucy."

"I got stabbed. And my mother tried to kill me. I am not having a good week."

"I'll make sure nothing else gets you."

"Thank you."

He leans down and kisses her forehead, the most reckless he'll allow himself to be until she's fully functional again, and then backs away. She needs space, she needs to heal, she damn well doesn't need _him_ but-

"Least I can do," he murmurs.

He's in love with her, he realizes as her eyes flutter shut and he stays focused on her everything. He's in love with her, and he absolutely will not lose another person who's managed to make a nest in his blackened shell of a heart, and he will move heaven and hell if that's what it takes to keep her safe. No more blood, no more pain, no more bad things for her. Ever.

Whatever happens for them, whether or not it matches the journal, he is choosing this and choosing her. No matter what she does, no matter what mistakes she makes, no matter how much (probably deserved) pain she brings him.

The man he is right now probably doesn't deserve her, but the man he is trying to become again might have a fighting chance.


End file.
